Fluffy Vegan Gluten-Free Pancakes (Vegan)(Gluten-Free)

I was so shocked how much better my vegan gluten free pancakes tasted compared to regular pancakes. My very first recipe was chickpea salad with canned beans, and now here’s a recipe utilizing aquafaba, which is the liquid from canned chickpeas normal people usually drain out. Unless if you’re vegan or a wasteless culinary expert, you probably never even heard of aquafaba or even imagined chickpea juice is a legit egg replacer. Oat flour is another star of my vegan pancakes, which makes this recipe to be probably the most healthiest version of pancake batter you could imagine. Yeah yeah, there’s processed sugar, shhh.

Gimme That Juice

First thing you need is your egg-replacer. Go to your garden where you get your vegan eggs, which is from your can of chickpeas from Trader Joe’s that’s been sitting in your pantry for who knows how long. Crack open that can and drain out the liquid in a bowl. Need something to do with the chickpeas? Perfect! Go to my chickpea salad recipe!

Make it Big and Fluffy

Using an electric whisk, whip it until the aquafaba look like egg whites in it’s stiff-peaks stage. It’s going to look bubbly at first, but after 2 minutes it will be a new person! When you add in all the ingredients, it might deflate a little, but that’s okay.

Turn Your Oats into Flour

I bet that you have a bag of oats laying around in your kitchen right now. grind it up in a blender, and you got your own oat flour! No need to break your back running around novelty grocery stores when it’s so easy to make at home, because guarantee it’s less time consuming to pop oats in a blender than hunt for oat flour. Blend a lot at a time so you have oat flour ready in your cabinet. Make sure it’s really fine, but I personally keep little chunks of oats in my flour for that rustic homemade aesthetic. Oats are magical and will absorb anything, even your intestines, so don’t fret if your batter will still be very loose. Give it a few minutes for the oats to expand and thicken your batter. If the taste is too earthy for you, you can always use your favorite type of flour, even good old AP! However, the measurements will be different, so if you were to change the flour just eye ball the flour until its a thick but runny consistency.

Short N’ Sweet

I find a sweetener very important in this recipe, since the ingredients have stronger flavors than normal pancake ingredients. I use brown sugar, but you can literally use anything you like, even applesauce or mashed bananas!

Toppings

The first time I made this recipe, I just added homemade coconut cream and sliced mangos with sesame seeds and maple syrup. Literally so delicious! When I filmed the video and took pictures to upload, I wanted to utilize more sophisticated ingredients and techniques for my toppings. Working as a pastry cook in a fine dining restaurant 900 feet in the air over DTLA, I learned how to make candied kumquats. I was so upset when I realized that kumquats are out of season. Why did the chef chose to use kumquats then? I guess really rich restaurants have the power to do anything. For the pistachio coconut cream, I completely came up with that myself and same with the sliced dragon fruit. I still prefer mangos, coconut cream, and maple syrup over the sophisticated toppings. The pistachio coconut cream made it too earthy!

Cooking

I LOVE butter to cook my pancakes, but because this is a vegan recipe I used my second favorite fat, coconut oil. Olive oil is great too since you can just pour it straight into the pan and the flavors will still taste yummy. If anyone were to ask me what’s my favorite kitchen tool, it’s a fish spatula! Seriously, use it for flipping pancakes! To tell when the pancakes are ready for flipping, the edges will be slightly brown and there will be small bubbles on top. Make sure the heat is not too high and cover with a lid to cook through the center.